Television fosters a mythology of competence. Jack Bauer on "24" always escapes from danger using highly sophisticated martial skills and he is supported by teams of technological savvy anti-terrorism specialists. Everything goes according to plan, weapons don't misfire, and maps are already read accurately, even in the midst of high-speed chases and gunfights. On "NCIS" and other CSI franchise shows, scientists amass clues and effectively evaluate them to solve crimes. All lab tests are run accurately and always yield reliable results. Even the villains are omni-competent, masters of their sinister arts. Of course, in real life, mistakes are made and most people are only marginally competent even in the fields in which they profess expertise. Similarly, by contrast to the indefatigable heroes and heroines depicted in pop culture, men and women are generally extremely lazy -- indeed, this is demonstrated by the popularity of television itself If TNT's true crime show, "Cold Case" has an implicit theme it is the gross incompetency of most law enforcement officers and the utter, inept laziness of the majority of prosecutors in the criminal justice system. Each week, "Cold Case" dispatches a pair of hardnosed female prosecutrixes to some backwater where a gruesome and notorious crime remains unsolved. The two women conduct new interviews, pore over old transcripts and grisly crime-scene photos and visit dilapidated sheds and trailerhouses where the murders were committed. At the end of each episode, enough evidence is accumulated to support a prosecution of the malefactor responsible for the atrocity and the shows end on an ostensibly happy note: grieving families embrace the two heroines and praise them for their diligence, bravery, and persistence in solving the crime. The show incorporates elements of several popular reality-TV genres: the first ten minutes of the program is similar to many paranormal investigation shows -- the two women, who don't look much like movie stars, drive to the scene of the crime while eerie music plays, discussing the upcoming investigation as they travel. (This is similar to the introductory and backstory formulae used in "TAPS," the seminal paranormal investigation series). The women offer themselves as compassionate friends of the family and fearless supporters of law enforcement. In this regard, the show is similar to the various bar, restaurant, and hotel rescue shows afflicting TV -- the locals are too inept to get the job done correctly, but, fortunately, help is at hand courtesy of the show's stars and each episode ends with an embrace in which the tearful famiy of the long-dead victim thank the stars for their diligence, brilliance, and hard-work. The two women who host this enterprise are unlikely TV stars -- they are both scrawny, speak with hillbilly accents; one of the them resembles a ferret wearing a large tawdry cross; the other looks like a blonde weasel. The remarkable thing about the program is that the crimes are all easily solved and everyone, including the bumpkin local prosecutors and cops, knows the exact identity of the villain. In this show no true detection is required; the villain has either confessed or almost confessed and all of his or her associates know that about the crime and that the perpetrator has boasted about it. The reason that the criminal is still at large is attributable to the sheer laziness, negligence, and the brutally apparent disinterest of local authorities. The investigators don't turn up any new evidence. They just reinterview witnesses (who probably believe the statute of limitations has expired or who have now had a falling-out with the bad guy) and get them to state that they know the identity of the perpetrator. But, of course, everyone in the county knows the perpetrator. The only riddle that the show poses, and it is one that is baffling, is this: why is the known criminal still at-large? As far as I can determine, the answer usually has something to with the victim: in one case, the dead girl was an alcoholic, drug addict, someone so hapless that the show couldn't even find any credible relatives mourning her loss. In another show, the victim is a black woman murdered by an ex-boyfriend. The four or five white detectives involved in re-opening the cold-case fourteen years later seem genial and interested in solving the case, but this was clearly not the circumstance when the crime occurred -- obviously, the white police force viewed the crime as one that wasn't worth investigating, particularly, when the suspect seems to have had something to do with a daughter of the token black officer on the force; that man seems very embarrassed by the whole proceedings. An exception is an Iowa case involving a double murder in which the perpetrator was so obvious that the local authorities seems to have considered a competent investigation and indictment to be unsporting and beneath their dignity. The investigators proceed by innuendo and character assassination and their modus operandi is to bully people into giving them interviews, frequently on issues of character and propensity that would have no legal relevancy in a court of law. Since, everyone knows who committed the crime, there's no real surprise when the bad guy is finally indicted. The show is wicked and pernicious in one important respect: people who don't cooperate with the police are portrayed as de facto guilty merely because of their reluctance to confess or otherwise provide information to the cops. In one episode, a man is brought into the police station and asked to confess. He refuses and so the cops use strong-arm techniques on him, handcuffing him again and yanking him out of the interrogation room, apparently as a reprisal for his unwillingness to talk to them. But, of course, the constitution provides us all with a right to remain silent. And silence, or assertion of constitutional rights, is not evidence of guilt. "Cold Case's" nonchalance with respect to the Constitution is shocking: it's not a crime to refuse to talk to police, let alone pushy TV-investigators. Indeed, a good argument can be made that every citizen's obligation is to not cooperate with the police and, indeed, to subvert TV journalists who are, by and large, idiots and liars. Yet shows like this, in concert with public school liaison officers, exist to persuade the public that they should always cooperate with the police and that cops are their friends. From long experience as an attorney, I know the opposite and believe that constitutional principles should be taught in school -- there should be, at least, equal time accorded to teaching kids not to cooperate with cops as is devoted to persuading them to cuddle up with law enforcement. (Kid-friendly cops are installed in many schools and the gendarmes bring in their German Shepherds to indoctrine the children with the cute and frisk "office dogs" when they are tiny tykes.) TV shows and kids should be told this truth: when a cop is accused of a crime or misconduct, the very first thing that he or she does is assert constitutional rights, refuse to talk, and "lawyer up." Even police accused of minor workplace infractions refuse to discuss this with their supervisors without union stewards and lawyers present. But, of course, children in our schools and people watching shows like "Cold Case" are provided with the opposite message.
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